Meet Marta

You can’t leave Marta’s house without her offering to give you a plant, a piece of jewelry, or a snack. Marta loves to give. Every Saturday she orders pizzas for forty kids in her neighborhood, offering Glu-Glu, a Mercado Fresco product that is similar to apple juice, to complete the meal. Once tummies are fed, Marta teaches the Bible and leads the children in performances and crafts that correspondence with the lesson of the day. Last weekend, Marta taught about how God uses kids in the Bible. Her own children are grown, but they help out, along with her husband, Bayardo, to instill good values into the kids. Marta laughed as she recalled the children acting out Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem for their Easter lesson. The child playing the donkey dropped Jesus mid-scene and decided to just eat grass instead, as donkeys do. Then Marta got serious for a moment. She explained that she worries about her community and the trends she sees with drugs, pornography, and other temptations the kids are faced with daily. She hopes to help stop that progression by holding this group every week for two hours. She feels it’s the best way she can help her community.

Marta’s generosity doesn’t stop with children. Without any encouragement to do so, Marta has been recruiting other women for Supply Hope to open their own stores. Even if they might be competition for her own store, Marta wants to share her success with other women. She is excited about more mentor-ship opportunities for those who do decide to open a Mercado Fresco and has already brought many other women into the business.

After receiving a special scholarship to study engineering in Russia for six years, Marta was excited to come home. However, she found she couldn’t use her impressive degree because her son, William, struggled with asthma attacks, and her eldest daughter, Greten, had chronic jaw pain. While her husband was able to work, his income wasn’t sufficient to provide for a family of five. Marta was taught to “use her teeth and nails and fight.” So she learned how to make jewelry and made some extra money selling her creations, but it wasn’t much. Now, Marta can help pay for water, electricity, and food. She can afford to feed forty children pizza and Glu-Glu every Saturday.